A friend in my Wednesday night gaming group managed to get a hold of a copy of the Final Fantasy tabletop rpg rulebook not long ago, and having spent the past few Wednesdays playing nothing more than Betrayal at the House On the Hill, Poo!, and Last Night on Earth, we decided it was worth giving a shot.

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Character creation was extremely quick, with it taking around 15 minutes for three players to make level one characters. Two players would arrive late, so we started the game while they created their characters. I made a Viera summoner, who had the ability to call Shiva into battle. Wanting her name to follow the FF tradition of elemental or weather related names, I chose Rayne. My friend made a mute Viera monk, who we decided was my older sister, and named her Pur-pil.

Another friend made a Taru-taru, dubbed Thund-arr, black caller, which is a mix of black mage and summoner, the main difference between callers and summoners is that called creatures attack once and then leave, where as summoned creatures can remain on the field for six rounds. The two late players would create a Nu Mou white mage, dubbed Adoynez, and a Galkan Knight, dubbed Gilgasmash.

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Starting backstory: The Viera sisters were once a normal part of a Viera community, with the sister Rayne being groomed for a high spot within the village's temple. All that would change the day the sisters found a Taru-taru injured near the edge of the wood, and against all tradition, brought him back to the village for healing. The Taru-taru would survive, but the sisters were banished from the community. Owing them his life, Thund-arr accompanied the sisters on the road, the three of them eventually finding a home for themselves in the human village of Espean.

The game begins:

Life in Espean had been simple, but pleasant. We had heard rumors of the nearby Byzan Empire making more aggressive moves, but those problems seemed worlds away from the small village that stood as the last haven of civilization before travelers entered the Arcadian Woods on their way to the Monolith of Mirrored Summons, where prospective summoners would go to earn a new esper.

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Rayne was just returning to the village from mushroom picking, when her ears perked up at the sound of an explosion on the far side of town. She ran to the inn and found her sister and Thund-arr already prepped to go investigate. Together the three of them ran towards the smoke.

The gate was in ruins, and soldiers, clearly wearing the markings of Byzan, were pouring through. Many villagers had already been killed. We charged ahead, and the world seemed to dissolve around us, and all that was left was the battle (our attempt to describe the traditional FF random battle beginning ).

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Combat was extremely simple to grasp. No minis were required, no need to keep track of movement. It worked pretty much like the traditional turn-based FF. We were attacked in waves, the first being two soldiers and something called a man-tank ( all the enemies in the game have to be designed by the Game Master, but our GM assures us it's extremely easy, and he never had to spend more than a few minutes working on any one creature).

Initiative was rolled, and our side did poorly. The soldiers attacked Pur-pil, scoring two light hits. The man-tank seemingly did nothing, but a "2" appeared overhead. Pur-pil set up for a Punch Rush, a monk special attack that had to wait two ticks in the initiative order to go off ( for example, if Pur-pil's init was 15, her PR wouldn't go off until init 13. Anyone who was init 14 would go before the PR, possibly disrupting the charge if they hit her). Thund-arr let loose a lightning bolt, zapping the tank. Rayne tried to simply smack one with her cypress rod, but missed badly. Pur-pil's Punch Rush went off, dropping a soldier. Initiative time again ( You reroll after every round).

The wave was over in a couple of rounds, with our side only barely scuffed by the end. The second wave, two man-tanks, faired no better. Thund-arr dropped one almost instantly with lightning. Rayne finally summoned Shiva, who ended the second tank with one blizzard spell. The third wave was two more man-tanks, and a time mage. That poor,poor time mage. Things went no better for the Byzans that wave.

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Our retaliation had begun to rally some of the villagers, and together we pushed the Byzans out. They would retreat, but signs already showed they were trying to route Espean, on their march towards the monolith. The village elders asked that we protect the monolith, and we decided to help however we could. In the morning, we would leave through the Arcadian Woods...